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Friday, August 26, 2011

Animal's Genetic Code Redesigned

This is the first step in
directly altering the DNA of creatures in directions chosen by ourselves.We are no longer tied to the existing living
animals and to working solely with them.There is actually plenty of suggestive evidence supporting earlier work
by humanity along these lines some forty thousand years ago, but that is
another tale.My point is that we are
now starting to do just that ourselves and will soon surprise ourselves.

Soon enough we will be able to
produce space adapted humanity ourselves.

I wonder just how much folks will
howl when they really begin to understand how much capability we are gaining
over life’s design?

Animal's genetic code redesigned

By Roland PeaseBBC Radio Science

11 August 2011

The artificial protein contains a dye that glows cherry red under UV
light

The worms - from the species Caenorhabditis elegans - are 1mm
long, with just a thousand cells in their transparent bodies.

What makes the newly created animals different is that their genetic
code has been extended to create biological molecules not known in the natural
world.

Genes are the DNA blueprints that enable living organisms to construct
their biological machinery, protein molecules, out of strings of simpler
building blocks called amino acids.

Just 20 amino acids are used in natural living organisms, assembled in
different combinations to make the tens of thousands of different proteins
needed to sustain life.

Expanded palette

But Sebastian Greiss and Jason Chin have re-engineered the nematode
worm's gene-reading machinery to include a 21st amino acid, not found in
nature.

Dr Chin of the Medical Research Council's Laboratory of Molecular
Biology (where Francis Crick and James Watson first cracked the structure of
DNA) describes the technique as "potentially transformational":
designer proteins could be created that are entirely under the researchers'
control.

The development builds on techniques first developed at the Scripps
Research Institute, in La Jolla,
US, where Dr
Chin worked 10 years ago.

The genetic code comes in four DNA letters, A,C,G and T; the genetic
machinery reads it in words three letters long, called codons, which stand for
the individual amino acid blocks to be built into a growing protein.

At Scripps, researchers showed in a paper in
PNAS how one of those three letter words could be re-assigned, so that
cells would read it as an instruction to incorporate an unnatural amino acid,
one not normally found in living organisms. But that was in the
bacterium E. coli; until now, no one had succeeded in doing the same in a
whole animal.

Jonathan Hodgkin, professor of genetics at Oxford University, welcomes
the new development, saying it "creates exciting new opportunities for
research on C. elegans".

New tricks

Closer to home, Dr Mario de Bono, an expert on C elegans, who is
also at the Laboratory of Molecular Biology, predicts "this sort of news
travels like wildfire" among research biologists, adding that the
method could be applied to a wide range of animals.

So far it is just a proof of principle - the artificial protein that
is produced in every cell of the nematode worm's tiny body contains a
fluorescent dye that glows cherry red under ultraviolet light. If the genetic
trick failed, there would be no glow.

But Dr Chin says any artificial amino acid could be chosen to produce
specific new properties. Dr de Bono suggests the approach could now be used to
introduce into organisms designer proteins that could be controlled by light.

Indeed, the two are planning to collaborate on a detailed study of
neural cells in the nematode brain, aiming to activate or deactivate individual
neurons in precise ways with tiny laser flashes.

Dr Chin rather modestly admits he's "incredibly pleased" to
have succeeded in a project he had avoided until a year and a half ago, for
fear that other well-established competitors would get there quicker.

On the other hand, Dr de Bono compares the invention with the Nobel-prize
winning work on green fluorescent protein, which are now part of the
standard kit in biology labs across the world.

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Apr 2017 - 4.1 Mil Pg Views, March 2013 - Posted my paper introducing CLOUD COSMOLOGY & NEUTRAL NEUTRINO rigorously described as the SPACE TIME PENDULUM, September 2010 I am pleased to report that my essay titled A NEW METRIC WITH APPLICATIONS TO PHYSICS AND SOLVING CERTAIN HIGHER ORDERED DIFFERENTIAL EQUATIONS' has been published in Physics Essays(AIP) and appeared in their June 2010 quarterly. 40 years ago I took an honors degree in applied mathematics from the University of Waterloo. My interest was Relativity and my last year there saw me complete a 900 level course under Hanno Rund on his work in relativity,as well as differential geometry(pure math) and of course analysis. I continued researching new ideas and knowledge since that time and I have prepared a book for publication titled Paradigms Shift&. I maintain my blog as a day book and research tool to retain data and record impressions and interpretations on material read. Do join my blog and receive Four items of interest daily Monday through Saturday.